


strays of devotion

by falconeggs



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crusades, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands, Loss, M/M, Pets, Post-Movie, Pre-Canon, Slave traders - Freeform, Stray Animals, Time Skips, Witch Hunts, discussions of religion, don’t let the tags fool you this is mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25731175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falconeggs/pseuds/falconeggs
Summary: “Nicolo prays. He asks God, every day, five times a day, for answers. He begs God to show him the truth. In the rare times he’s on his lonesome, Nicolo extends his arms to Heaven and asks God to strike him down forever, if he should not love Yusuf. Every time he does, within two days, Nicolo dies, and Yusuf waits for him while he comes back. Yusuf’s eyes get wet, like they do every time he’s relieved Nicolo lives again, and his calloused hands take one of Nicolo’s, and all Nicolo can think about is how much he wants to kiss Yusuf. He’s never kissed anyone before.Nicolo can face Death fearlessly, and fight despite wounds that would kill a normal man, but when it comes to kissing the man he’s spent just over a decade loving wholeheartedly, he feels a coward.”Or, two men of God travel and fall in love every day for nine hundred years.
Relationships: Background Andy/Quynh - Relationship, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 42
Kudos: 501





	strays of devotion

**Author's Note:**

> This was just supposed to be about why Nicky and Joe were at the hotel first, and a little bit about Joe always adopting animals, and ended up being.... this. There is some violence and death, as is canon-typical, but I tried to write it as non-graphically as I could. The middle third of this turned into a kidfic, and I don’t know how I keep ending up writing kidfics but here we are. A lot gets covered in this. Like, a lot. Like, first meeting to post-movie. I wrote this probably too quickly and edited it in the same speed, so if there are typos, I’m so sorry, just ignore em. I loved writing this, and I loved everything about Old Guard, and I hope you enjoy this fic! If you wanna hang, I’m @focksii on tumblr. Thanks!

It was nearly three weeks into his time in the Holy Land that Nicolo met Yusef, though ‘met’ may not be an accurate term. The details are a little hazy, and they always have been. As he wakes, Nicolo can’t quite remember the series of events that led him here. He remembers fighting. He remembers blood shining on his sword, and men of all kinds dying around him. He remembers scaling a wall, his command struggling to keep up behind him, mostly because the wall crumbled beneath their hands and feet, ravaged by the war. He remembers crossing blades with one of the so-called Pagans he was there to fight. He remembers how straight that man’s nose was, how thick his beard was, and the odd softness in his dark eyes. He remembers the feeling of his blade cutting through the man, and he definitely remembers how the man’s blade felt as it sliced through Nicolo’s chest.

He doesn’t remember the way they fall together. They hit the ground at the same time, their bloods trickling in streams until it pools together into one blood. The war rages around them as they lay dead on the wall. 

In that place between dead and alive, Nicolo dreams. Without his eyes opening, he sees two warriors, women, fighting side by side with strength and dexterity that must have taken ages to perfect. He dreams of the man that stabbed him, the one he stabbed, the one whose body lies next to Nicolo’s own. The visions come in flashes, gone as quickly as they’d come. 

The wall crumbles before Nicolo wakes. When he does wake, he’s surrounded by rubble and dusted bodies, and the battle struggling to continue around him. He reaches for his sword first, and then for the bloodied hole in his clothing, where his skin is smooth beneath his hand. He pats his entire torso, sitting up quickly, his palm digging into his body, like he’ll find the wound if he hits himself hard enough. There is no wound to find. 

He was dead. Nicolo knew he had died. The man who killed him is just as skilled at carnage as Nicolo expected, just as skilled as Nicolo had been trained to be. He felt the steel of the man’s blade enter his body, and, yet, Nicolo lives. 

Beside him, the man he killed, the one who killed him, and flashed behind his eyes when he was dead, stirs with a groan. As the man starts to pick himself up, Nicolo scurries backwards in shock, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the man he killed. 

“No,” Nicolo gasps in shock. This second chance at life that God has extended to him was also extended to his enemy.

When the man realizes, fully, what has happened, he turns to Nicolo and stabs him again. Nicolo grunts in surprise, grasping the arm extended with the scimitar buried in his chest. The man looks surprised, grasping Nicolo back, like a reflex. 

“God smiles down on me,” he wheezes around the blade, baring bloodied teeth at the man. With the last of his strength, Nicolo returns the favor, and runs the man through with his sword. 

Again, they rise together, fight for a while, then kill each other. It goes and goes, until the battlegrounds are silent, aside from their exhausted grunts. Even after everyone else on the battleground is dead, they keep fighting, and they kill each other over and over again. Nicolo slits the man’s throat, and the man punches Nicolo’s face in, and Nicolo snaps the man’s neck, and the man impales him with a flag stake nearby. For hours, they fight, until the man grabs broken stone from the fallen wall and smashes Nicolo’s head. 

When he wakes in the puddle of his own blood and brains, Nicolo doesn’t move. He sucks in calm breaths, and decides he’s tired of fighting. He waits, and a handful of minutes pass. It’s silent among the dead. The fighting has stopped, for now, and Nicolo can’t tell which side has won; Muslims and Christians surround him, unmoving in equal measure. 

Slowly, when he’s sure he’s heard no movement from his opponent, Nicolo rolls over and starts to sit up. He only has a moment to take in the horrific sight of death before realizing he is not alone. The man, who has killed him now more times than he could’ve ever fathomed, sits a few feet away. His feet are planted on the ground, knees huddled close to his chest, his long fingers interlocked in a way that is far too innocent for someone so thoroughly soaked in Nicolo’s blood. His eyes are wide and deep, watching intently as Nicolo rises. 

Nicolo inches backwards, eager to put distance between he and the man who killed him, not exactly looking forward to another stabbing or clubbing. The man doesn’t move, aside from lifting his hands, as if to show he means no more harm. They must’ve decided together, then, that this quest to kill one another may never end until they end it themselves. Nicolo nods in acknowledgement of this unsteady truce between them, settling in a position where he might catch his breath. 

The man puts his hands down slowly, one resting on his own chest. “Yusuf,” he introduces himself. 

Nicolo wants to laugh. He feels like he knows this man so intimately now. To be introduced feels so silly. He doesn’t laugh. “I am Nicolo,” he says, instead, in Yusuf’s language. 

Yusuf’s dark brows raise in surprise. “You speak Arabic?” He asks, having not expected the Crusader to be able to communicate with him, outside of killing him repeatedly. 

“A little,” Nicolo admits, holding up his fingers. “We learned to speak about God, to save the souls that we could save.”

Yusuf snorts, clearly amused, shaking his head. “And am I a soul you cannot save?” He asks. 

Nicolo doesn’t know how to answer that. He looks around and sees the bodies of men who he was taught to hate. These men were defending their homes from invaders. He looks down at himself, at his tabard and cape, soaked and stained with blood, and realizes he might not be the good guy. Nicolo sags and sighs. “I was not brought here by God to save souls,” he admits, quietly. 

“No, you were brought by your God to kill men in His name,” Yusuf says, and though the words are harsh, they are softened by the smile hiding beneath his thick beard. “This is an interesting God you have.”

Nicolo chuckles. His studies of the Holy texts showed him many contradictions, and God showed him many more in the Holy Land. Yusuf, himself, seems to be one of those contradictions. Nicolo’s enemy is equally as blessed? They kill each other dozens of times, then carry on a civil conversation? What worried Nicolo endlessly in his youth, the inconsistency of the Divine, only seems to tickle him now. “God brought me here to be killed by you,” Nicolo decides, a smirk tugging at his lips. 

“Oh, please, explain,” Yusuf prompts with a wave of his hand and a wide grin of his own. “Why would He do that?”

“I cannot pretend to know why God does what He does,” Nicolo shrugs. “Why has He given both of us this gift of not being touched by death? I do not know. Why did He have you kill me many times? Or have me kill you, just as many? Why do we sit, talking about Him, as though we are two old friends? He brought us both here, because we were to meet.”

“We were?” Yusuf repeats. He smiles, almost fondly, at Nicolo, extending a leg out in front of him. “And what would your God have us do next?”

Nicolo looks around, and the bodies that wall-in the dirt and rubble soaked in their blood. “Leave this place,” he sighs. He stands, then turns to look at Yusuf, then offers him a hand. 

“I’ll go where you go,” Yusuf agrees, clapping his hand to Nicolo’s and using the Crusader’s strength to help him up. “We should probably find you new clothes, eh? You look a mess.”

Nicolo looks down at himself, and is instantly reminded of all the carnage. Yusuf is no better, with torn and bloodied clothes hanging off of his muscled frame. “You, too,” he nods. It’s only at this point he realizes that he hasn’t yet dropped Yusuf’s hand. His calluses fit so well against Nicolo’s. He’s strong, yet gentle, just like his hands, and Nicolo doesn’t want to let go. Yusuf makes no move to let go, either. 

“Quite the pair we are,” Yusuf grins.

  
-

The dreams they share, of the two other undying warriors, point them North, so they travel North to find them.

Their path is hardly a silent one. Nicolo is a talkative man, and his companion keeps up with great ease. Mostly, when they talk, they talk about God, and about Yusuf’s Allah. The Arabic Nicolo was taught is mostly about God and scripture, which is the main reason it’s their primary subject of conversation. Sometimes, when they talk about their Gods, it’s like they’re speaking of the same old friend, known to them by different names. Before Yusuf, the thought would have never crossed Nicolo’s mind. Eventually, Nicolo learns more Arabic, which he’s able to pick up quickly under Yusuf’s careful guidance. Nicolo teaches Yusuf Italian, too, and he speaks to Nicolo in their broken, secret language when there are too many ears around them. 

They pray together, too. Five times a day, they stop, and they sit aside one another to commune with God. Nicolo finds this to be the only thing of his life now that reminds him of his priesthood. Nicolo thinks the prayers in Arabic are beautiful when they tumble softly from Yusuf’s lips. He hadn’t thought so before. There’s a reverence in Yusuf’s words that Nicolo only noticed because it lacked in the scriptures he’s been taught. When he prays, silently, his prayers are in Arabic, and he knows God can understand.

Sometimes, they die. Usually, it’s in a battle for a cause they deem noble enough to fight. Once, it was an accident, a limit too far pushed. Every single time Nicolo wriggles from Death’s very loose grip, Yusuf is there, waiting for him. He vows, silently and only to himself, that he will be there every time Yusuf wakes, too. The longer they travel together, the closer they become. Lately, when he wakes, his hand is slotted into Yusuf’s, or Yusuf’s fingers will be grazing his cheek, waiting for him to wake. Yusuf’s dark eyes sparkle every time Nicolo takes a sharp breath of life and seeks out Yusuf.

In the first few years of their travels together, it’s impossible for Nicolo to not think of Yusuf as a temptation from God. This beautiful, violent man who prays to a God of another name, a man that animals flock to and mankind swoons for, had to have been the ultimate test of devotion. Were Nicolo to fall into his trap, he would be straying from God. But Yusuf never feels like a trap. Nicolo sees God when he watches Yusuf rise again and keep fighting. He feels God’s love when he looks into Yusuf’s eyes. He knows God smiles when Yusuf feeds a stray cat and it follows them for weeks. God Himself had put on a Holy War to bring their fates together. How could it be a trap?

So, Nicolo prays. He asks God, every day, five times a day, for answers. He begs God to show him the truth. In the rare times he’s on his lonesome, Nicolo extends his arms to Heaven and asks God to strike him down forever, if he should not love Yusuf. Every time he does, within two days, Nicolo dies, and Yusuf waits for him while he comes back. Yusuf’s eyes get wet, like they do every time he’s relieved Nicolo lives again, and his calloused hands take one of Nicolo’s, and all Nicolo can think about is how much he wants to kiss Yusuf. He’s never kissed anyone before. 

Nicolo can face Death fearlessly, and fight despite wounds that would kill a normal man, but when it comes to kissing the man he’s spent just over a decade loving wholeheartedly, he feels a coward. 

-

As Nicolo hurries home from the market, he follows his shadow, stretched out too long in front of him. He’s late. Late enough that Yusuf has likely started praying without him. Nicolo had gotten caught up at the nut stand, trying too hard to haggle down the price for macadamias. Nicolo only succeeded because the merchant needed to close down for prayers. As he chases his own shadow home, he prays softly. 

“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,” Nicolo mumbles in panted Arabic as he speed-walks down the street. Why did he and Yusuf insist on living so far off the beaten path? “As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be a world without end. Please, Lord, do not let me trip and fall and spill all of these nuts everywhere. Amen.” He crosses himself as best he can with two armfuls of new belongings. 

By the time their little house is in his sight, he knows prayer time must be over by now. Yusuf, while dedicated completely to waiting for Nicolo, rarely misses his prayers. That dedication to his Allah is one of the many reasons Nicolo loves him so. When Nicolo crosses the threshold of their home quietly, he’s surprised to hear Yusuf still praying. He’s so surprised, he stops dead in his tracks. Yusuf must have waited a long time for Nicolo to return before beginning his prayers.

“Allah, send your blessings to Muhammad and the true followers of Muhammad,” Yusuf prays, softly, “just as you sent blessings to Ibrahim and his true followers. Surely, you are Most Praiseworthy, Exalted One.” He’s near the end of his prayers, if Nicolo knows correctly, and he does. But instead of wishing peace and mercy, Yusuf continues, just as soft and reverent as the rest of his prayers. “Allah, send grace, and honor, and many blessings to my beloved, just as you have blessed me. Praise to you for the blessing of everlasting life, the life you have allowed me to share with him. Glory to you, Allah, for his kindness, for his strength, for his wisdom. I see you, the Most Glorious and Compassionate, when I look upon his face. Of all the things on this earth and beyond, he is your most Divine creation, and I am most humbly honored to tread my footprints beside his.”

Nicolo can’t move. He can’t breathe. He can hardly think. His heart pounds against his rib cage like it’s desperate to burst out and land at Yusuf’s feet. Nicolo knows that how he feels for Yusuf is returned, though they’ve never spoken about it, nor have they shared more than lingering touches, too intimate for mere traveling companions. Still, nothing could have prepared Nicolo to hear him prayed about with as much reverence as Yusuf holds for Allah Himself. 

“I know you send him blessings as though he were a follower of Muhammad,” Yusuf continues, so softly, Nicolo hardly hears him. Were there any wind or rain, Nicolo might not have been able to. “He follows Jesu, son of Deus. But I suspect that you, Great Allah, are named Deus, too-, that you, of many titles but are unknowable, have earned his title, too. My beloved follows you just as much as I do, I know from the way you have blessed us both. Please, Allah. I would do all you ask to have him always.”

Nicolo’s eyes fall closed as he listens. Yusuf always sound like poetry when he speaks with Allah. This feels like the choir in perfect harmony, resonating vibrations in Nicolo’s chest, down his arms, out his fingertips. He knows that this home with Yusuf was always meant to be his destiny.

“Peace and mercy of Allah to all,” Yusuf murmurs, in absence of a neighbor to wish blessings on. He stands and bends to carefully fold his prayer rug. It’s only when he turns to put the rug away that he sees Nicolo, standing silently in the doorway. He jumps in surprise, then smiles. “Peace and mercy of Allah to you,” he greets.

Nicolo smiles, touched deeply by it all. “Peace and mercy of Allah to you,” he nods back, unmoving from the doorway. 

It dawns on Yusuf, as he sets the mat down on it usual perch, that Nicolo had been listening, that he had been too busy praying to hear when Nicolo came in. He quickly looks away and scratches at his head, through the thick, overgrown bed of curls. 

“I pray for you, too,” Nicolo admits, finally taking slow steps past the threshold, putting all of his items down on the table where they share their meals. He reaches into a sack and pulls out a few nuts, then turns to where their latest pet, a vibrant bird, is perched, feeding her the treat. “In a very similar way, usually.” The bird coos gratefully, nuzzling Nicolo’s fingers. He stills his hands and gathers just enough nerve to look at his Yusuf. “I pray that when Allah decides we are not to be together, he will have to be the one to take me from you.” Yusuf turns, a soft, dumbfounded look on his face as he gazed at Nicolo, just as surprised to hear Nicolo’s confession as Nicolo was to hear Yusuf’s prayer for him. 

“Nicolo,” Yusuf sighs, his body leaning toward his dearest companion. Nicolo can no longer resist the pull, stepping around their small table to stand closer to Yusuf. 

“I will always be here, Yusuf,” Nicolo promises, whispering in Italian, the language he only uses for secrets anymore. “Wherever ‘here’ is, I will be, and with you.”

Yusuf lets out a soft breath, leaning his head forward until their foreheads rest against each other. Nicolo’s eyes fall closed, reveling in their shared breath, in their closeness. The longest of Yusuf’s beard hairs tickle as Nicolo’s cheek, and he leans a little closer to feel it more completely. Nicolo hears Yusuf suck in a gasp before he feels his lips press against Nicolo’s for the first time. Nicolo’s fingers card through Yusuf’s beard, cupping his jaw to hold his closer. He’d gladly die of no air on Yusuf’s lips for them to never end their kiss. To imagine, momentarily, an eternity’s worth of kisses, is overwhelming. Nicolo whimpers, quietly, against his Yusuf’s lips, and Yusuf holds him close, his strong arms wrapping around Nicolo protectively. 

Their lips part, eventually, but their breath is connected, and their noses still brush. “My Nicolo,” Yusuf whispers, reverently, in Italian. “We are bound together by God.” His accent makes the words sound so melodic, in a way no native speaker could ever attempt.

Nicolo chuckles, his fingers stroking over Yusuf’s beard the way he’d longed to do for more than twenty years, now. “Does that make you my husband, then?” He asks, still in their secret language. 

Yusuf smiles, his eyes darting down to Nicolo’s lips for a moment. “If you would have me,” Yusuf nods, with his heart on his sleeve, ready to be captured by Nicolo. If he is to be presented with something as precious as Yusuf’s heart, Nicolo would be damned if he did not care tenderly for it. 

“I would have no one else,” Nicolo swears. 

-

  
It takes another fifty years, but they finally -finally!- meet Andromache and Quynh. It takes a lot of guess work and an immense more luck. In the dreams, the people around the other two immortals start to look more and more like the people in the new towns Nicolo and Yusuf travel to. They stop in a small city with a large open market, only planning on staying a little while, but they like the market so much, they stay. Nicolo likes the stories told at the stalls, and Yusuf likes the cats that beg for his attention, like they know he knows how to scratch their favorite spots. Then, one day, when they’ve been in the city for a little too long, as Nicolo peruses fine crafts with little intent to buy anything, and Yusuf pets all the cats he can, the back of Yusuf’s hand smacks Nicolo’s arm. Nicolo looks away from the little statues on the pedestal and toward Yusuf, then follows Yusuf’s eyes across the open market.

Andromache is easy to spot, fair-skinned, and a good few inches taller than most men in the market. She is exactly how Nicolo dreamed her to be, with a powerful grace that is as captivating as it is terrifying. Behind her, a few paces back, is Quynh, going unnoticed in comparison to her companion. It is surreal, to see them in person, to know them so well without having ever met them before. 

Before he can think better of it, and before Yusuf can stop him, Nicolo shouts, “Andromache!” The bustling square doesn’t take notice, but she and Quynh do. They both stop, their eyes snapping to Nicolo and Yusef. For a moment, Nicolo is terrified, because never before had such a bloodthirsty gaze been thrown upon him. His fear only lasts a moment, because Andromache does something unexpected: she smiles.

Nicolo grips Yusuf’s wrist and moves toward them. Yusuf hardly needs to be dragged; he’s been drawing their faces for nearly a century, he’s desperate to know if his illustrations are accurate. When they’re close enough, Nicolo lets go of Yusuf to extend his arm to Andromache. She takes it, and pulls him in for a tight embrace, like they’re long-lost friends. Maybe that’s exactly what they are. 

“Oh, Nicolo,” Andromache laughs-, actually laughs! She pulls back enough to look him over, and he does the same. She’s a lot more beautiful than he expected, for some reason. Her features could almost be described as delicate, and he hadn’t noticed in all the dreams he’d had of her brutally murdering her enemies. 

Beside them, Quynh and Yusuf embrace in a similar way. In a few moments, they switch partners, and Yusuf picks Andromache up off the ground, even if she is an ancient warrior who stands inches taller than him. 

“Yusuf!” Andromache laughs again. Nicolo is so amazed to hear her laugh in person. He’d expected it would take at least a decade of Yusuf’s terrible jokes for her to even crack a smile at them, and, yet, here she is, giggling like a girl as she meets her two new friends. 

Nicolo reaches for Quynh, and she wraps her strong, delicate arms around his middle, pressing her cheek to his chest, smiling widely. He hugs her around her shoulders in a way that should be too familiar for a first meeting, but it only feels like coming home. It feels how he imagined coming home after the Crusades would feel like, before he met Yusuf, before he even left Genoa. Once, more than a lifetime ago, Nicolo imagined his sister awaiting his return at the docks, and jumping into his awaiting arms. Now, when he thinks of her, she wears Quynh’s face, or Andromache’s. Quynh’s embrace is stronger and steadier than Nicolo’s sister’s. Her embrace is more of what Nicolo needs in his life. 

All of them seem pleased that this is not happening on the battlefield. Truthfully, that is exactly what Nicolo expected, based on how he and Yusuf met, and all the dreams he’s had of Quynh and Andromache. To share such an impactful memory in such a mundane place is so bizarre, but just as comforting. 

“We weren’t sure we would ever find you two,” Yusuf says, jovial to be with family for the first time in nearly a century. 

The women share a look. “Our Arabic is not good,” Quynh admits, her accent thick, but her voice sweet. 

“Do you speak Italian?” Nicolo asks in the language he references. 

Andromache lights up. “Better than I speak Arabic,” she nods with a grin. 

“Perfect,” Nicolo grins back. It seems their secret language continues. “Do you have a place to stay yet?”

The women shake their heads. “Not yet,” the taller says. 

“You’ll stay with us,” Yusuf insists, decisively. There would never be another option, anyway. Not anymore. Destiny has finally brought them all together. “Our home here is small, but there is more than enough room for the both of you.”

-

After over a hundred years of being a part of the world’s most effective killing squadron, Nicolo and Yusuf need a break. Just a short break, but a break all the same. Nicolo loves Andy and Quynh more than he can say, but he loves Yusuf an immeasurable amount even more. At this point, Nicolo has been with Andromache and Quynh longer than anything else. A day or two every handful of years is not nearly enough alone time for either of them. So, a short break, no longer than a month, is absolutely necessary. 

Yusuf and Nicolo travel to Italy. Nicolo desperately wanted to show Yusuf around his hometown, but, upon arrival, Nicolo discovers that his city is not the one he remembers, and stumbles into a short, unexpected depression. After just a few hours in Genova, Yusuf procures two horses, in his usual way of procuring animals that adore him, and they leave the unfamiliar shadow of Nicolo’s memory. They ride the coast together, then sell the horses for passage on a ship that takes them to Malta. 

At the port, they buy a few supplies, and a sack full of treats, and take off from there on the beach. They dip their toes in the water as they walk for hours, sand caking their feet as they reveled in the sun. They stop, every few hours, to feed each other something delectable they‘d discovered at the market. They walk all day, recalling stories, sparring playfully in the dunes, getting farther and farther away, until the bustling port city is a spot in the distance. 

When the sun begins to set, they lay out on the sand, tiny granules clinging everywhere possible, and hold each other as the sky puts on a magnificent show, reflecting over the water. The sky shifts colors, and Nicolo is honored to watch the living painting from within Yusuf’s arms, nestled safely between his legs. The only movement comes from the ocean, receding back to leave more beach for them to enjoy. Even the way the colors dance into their gradient is too slow to notice as it happens. The stillness and quiet feels forbidden, which only makes Nicolo enjoy it more. 

Life with Andy and Quynh was always exiting, to say the least, and perhaps to a fault. In the last hundred years, Nicolo and Yusuf had picked up the habit of facing the door as they sleep, their swords within reach, as a necessary precaution they’ve had to rely on many times. The longest they stayed in one place is a week. There was usually no time to sit and marvel as God’s work, or even talk much of God at all. Andromache was not a fan of the subject. Unwilling to make their new companion uncomfortable, Yusuf and Nicolo had edited their routines. Now, they didn’t pray as often, in the sense of stopping their day to bow to God. Instead, they spend most of their days praying silently, but together. 

This sunset, with absolute serenity and beauty, feels like yet another miracle from God. It feels like another gift, another sign to show that what they do is ordained by His word. The thought makes Nicolo smile.

“Glory to you, O God,” Nicolo murmurs softly in Arabic, reverent in the majesty of this moment. “All praises are deservedly yours. Your name and Your creation are blessed, and endless is Your supremacy. None are worthy of such worship but You.”

When Yusuf kisses Nicolo’s jaw, Nicolo can feel his smile. “You are getting very poetic with your prayers,” he mumbles, and Nicolo can hear how he is being teased.

“It must be all the time I spend with you,” Nicolo teases back, soft and affectionate. 

“Ah, but you are the one that brings it out in me,” Yusuf argues. 

“Me?” Nicolo deflects, heading his own grin in his words. “I am but a humble priest. You are the educated, high-born man of endless talents.”

Yusuf snorts, burying his nose into Nicolo’s neck. Nicolo can tell, there’s a million arguments on the top of Yusuf’s tongue. “There is nothing humble about you, dear Nico,” he smirks, kissing Nicolo’s skin gently. 

Nicolo smiles softly to himself. “I am humbled by this,” he admits in a whisper. He worries the wind carried it away before Yusuf could hear him, but Yusuf’s arms tighten around him. “I am humbled that, by Allah’s grace, I sit here, some two hundred years after my birth, with the man I love, enjoying a beautiful sunset on a beach. All we have done, we know He has seen, and He has rewarded us with this moment of beauty and grace.”

“May He reward us with many more,” Yusuf murmurs into Nicolo’s skin. “And may we be worthy of His rewards. Though your love is far more than reward enough.”

Nicolo leans further into Yusuf, pulling the arms around him impossibly tighter. “May there never be a cure for your romanticism,” he prays, tilting his head back just enough to look at the side of Yusuf’s face, the hard lines of his nose and the thick bush of his dark beard, untainted with gray despite time. 

Yusuf does the same, pulling back an inch or two to look more completely at Nicolo’s face. “I will live forever with this sickness with which you have infected me,” he says, utterly charmed by the notion. 

“I have no regrets,” Nicolo chirps. Yusuf grins and kisses his smile. 

After the sun finishes it’s daily descent, the pair of immortal men continue on their walk. They walk for a little more than two hours in the growing darkness until they find a little stone house, all alone in a feild. There are no candles lit within, and, as they get closer to investigate, the house looks formerly-loved, but forgotten. With hands on the hilts of their blades, they enter the house, quick and silent. Based on the amount of dust on what little is left in the house, it has been empty for at least a few years. 

Together, they shake out the thin mattress on the floor, and sweep up until the place is suitable. Yusuf lights a fire and starts to put together a simple dinner for them. When Nicolo asks how he can help, Yusuf insists he help by playing his lute, a request that Nicolo is happy to oblige.

They luxuriate in quiet alone time. When they manage to get out of bed, Nicolo plays and sings silly songs that never rhyme, and Yusuf draws. Sometimes, they walk the surrounding lands. One day, they walked back to the port city, just to see it a little closer. But, mostly, they just spend quality time. Regardless of their excess of it, every spare moment they get feels precious. 

On their ninth morning in their little house, Nicolo wakes first. The familiar comfort of Yusuf’s arm slung around his waist, accompanied by Yusuf’s breath against Nicolo’s neck in slow, even puffs is all Nicolo needs to wake up and feel at home. He carefully turns in Yusuf’s grasp and looks over his face. In his sleep, Yusuf is unfairly handsome in ways he likes to hide when he’s awake. In the golden cast of the morning sun, he glistens, and there has never been such a beautiful sight. Under the watchful eye of the freshly rising sun, Yusuf hums himself into consciousness. Nicolo smiles in awe as he watches Yusuf slowly wake.

“You are so beautiful when you sleep,” Nicolo sighs when he knows Yusuf is just awake enough to respond. 

Yusuf croaks out a chuckle, peeking his eyes at Nicolo. “And you call me the romantic one,” he teases, wrapping his arms more tightly around Nicolo’s body, holding him close. 

“You are the romantic one,” Nicolo insists, but allows himself to be pulled closer. He beams, his lips pressed against Yusuf’s bare shoulder. “How did you sleep?” He asks, muffled against Yusuf’s warm skin. 

“Good,” Yusuf grunts, his hand reaching up to stroke through Nicolo’s long hair. “I dreamed we had a child.” Silence lingers around them. Nicolo is acutely aware that, even despite all their time together, this topic of conversation is one of the few that has never been breached. Nicolo should have seen it coming; their last heroic battle with their Guard had been bloody and traumatic, and ended with the four of them carrying orphans from a dungeon. With Yusuf’s habit of adopting strays, Nicolo is surprised they didn’t have his conversation decades ago. He senses the question before Yusuf asks. “Have you ever thought about children?”

Nicolo hesitates. “I used to,” he admits. “When we were young, before our beloved ladies came to meet us.” Nicolo pulls back a few inches to look at Yusuf, because he is never as brave as he is when he looks at Yusuf. “The idea of settling someplace for a few decades, where we might build a home and nurture a life, is an idea that was once warm to me. I think you would be a wonderful father. You would dote on our child endlessly, teaching them to fight, to cook, to draw. They would grow up strong, and so remarkable, leaving an irrefutable mark on this world. But our child would grow up, all the same. In the blink of an eye, our child will look as old as we do, and in another blink, they would grow old. I would love our child so completely. Watching the inevitable would break me.” 

Yusuf blinks a few times, taking in Nicolo’s perspective. “I have thought the same,” he sighs in agreement. “If we’re lucky, our child would have a dozen children, and each of them would have a dozen, too. But then, the torture continues endlessly. Having to watch all of our precious babies grow old and die, for the rest of time, it feels like an added torture to our eternity.” He turns his head to look over Nicolo’s face, his eyes touring the plains of his cheekbones. “Still, it is a nice fantasy. You know I have a fondness for children. In the brief time of my life that lacked the importance of you, I dreamed of having many of my own. And I would raise none without you. You would be a wonderful father, too. Your kind heart could mould even the most unruly of children into blossoms in springtime.”

Nicolo scoffs. “You see? You are the romantic one,” he rolls his eyes. 

“I mean it, Nicolo,” Yusuf whines, as much as he can manage, tugging Nicolo endlessly closer. “You are wonderful with children. I would be so lucky to raise a child with you.” Nicolo smiles, hidden against Yusuf’s neck. Yusuf holds Nicolo, one hand carding through his soft, messy hair absently. Nicolo feels it when Yusuf snorts. “When we need a night to ourselves, we could leave our precious jewel with Aunt Andy.”

Nicolo chuckles, melting a little more into their little fantasy. “She and Quynh are the only two in the world I would trust with our child,” he says, his fingers tracing gentle patterns into Yusuf’s side. “Perhaps one day, if there is a child who clings to your side the way all strays do. One with a sweet face and no other path to follow.” Nicolo smiles to himself, as he imagines a life where he and his love may raise a child. The reality is that it will never happen, but in the impossible fantasy of a ninth consecutive morning in the same bed, Nicolo feels safe to dream. “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

Yusuf sighs as he contemplates his answer. “Either,” he decides. “There would be merits to both options. It would be very sweet to see you with our daughter.”

Nicolo’s smile gets wider, melting as he imagines a little girl in a little dress, running around their legs, begging her Baba for attention. “Our very own little warrior princess,” Nicolo muses. “We, her fathers, would never have to defend her honor, because she could defend it herself, just as well as we could.”

Yusuf chuckles at the idea, his warm hands scaling the plains of Nicolo’s back. “A daughter would be a blessing,” Yusuf nods. “But a son would, too. I can imagine you teaching our son to be just like you. He’d make all the young ladies and lads swoon, just as you do.”

Nicolo lets out a loud laugh. “My Yusuf, if our son makes everyone swoon, it will because he learned it from you,” he teases, lifting his head to inspect Yusuf’s face. 

Yusuf’s brow lifts, unimpressed with Nicolo’s accusation. “Me?” He questions. “No one swoons for me, Nico. Only you.”

Nicolo rolls his eyes and snorts. “Only I swoon to your face,” he explains, always patient. For a man so constantly obsessed with their surroundings, Yusuf often didn’t notice things. “You are as intimidating as you are handsome. As soon as your gaze breaks from anyone at all, they melt.”

Yusuf’s beard could hide his pleased grin from everyone else, but Nicolo has been examining Yusuf’s face for two hundred years now, and that beard can hide nothing from Nicolo. “Is that right?” Yusuf smirks up at Nicolo. 

Nicolo nods, pulling back enough to cradle Yusuf’s cheek, his fingers carding through Yusuf’s beard. “Mhmm,” Nicolo hums with a nod. “Thank God you insist on this beard. If you uncovered your face, the world may never recover.”

“This face?” Yusuf teases, pointing at himself. 

“That face,” Nicolo agrees with a certain nod. He leans in and kisses Yusuf gently. He lingers on Yusuf’s lips for a moment before settling back in at his side. 

Nicolo dozes, half asleep as the sun slowly rises. The last time he and Yusuf have stayed in one place for so long was before Andromache and Quynh. It feels nice to rest, to not worry about the next battle. Every spare minute he can get, being lazy in the sun that streams through the window beside their bed, Nicolo cherishes. In the quiet, Nicolo imagines Yusuf with a child, and even contained in his mind, Nicolo falls in love with Yusuf for the millionth time. 

“I would be too overprotective,” Yusuf murmurs, after some time, clearly lingering on the subject in the same way Nicolo is. “They would resent me for it, eventually.”

“I do not resent your nature,” Nicolo says, soft and simple. He continues after a short pause. “I have been the subject of your stupidity when it comes to protection for much longer now than our child will ever be, and never once have I grown weary of it.”

Yusuf tugs on the ends of Nicolo’s hair, gently, to get Nicolo to look at him. Nicolo lifts his head and is met with an unimpressed look. “Stupidity?” He repeats. 

Nicolo huffs, but he smiles, brushing a hand over Yusuf’s forehead. “You know well, by now, that I always will rise again, I always will come back to you,” he explains, “and, yet, you jump in front of blades and arrows, you push me out of the way to take the hit yourself.” Nicolo smiles, not having to say that he has never done the same for Andy or Quynh. “Love has made you very stupid.” His finger twine into Yusuf’s curls, noticing how long his hair is getting. He watches the way Yusuf pretends not to smile at Nicolo’s accusation. 

Later, much later, after Yusuf left to hunt for meat of, really, any kind, and Nicolo spent his afternoon reading, moving to a new window as the sun moved, Yusuf returns with three rabbits for stewing, a weasel that followed him home, and his beard cut down to a very short stubble. For maybe an hour, Nicolo can do nothing but stare at Yusuf, a hunger in his eyes that could not be quelled by rabbit. 

-

There was a slight complication that forced Nicolo and Yusuf to return to Andromache and Quynh a day later than what had been agreed upon. They return to find their ladies in a panic, deeply worried that Yusuf and Nicolo might not return. By Andy’s count, they were supposed to return, not yesterday, but two days ago, and they had spent the last two days in mourning. They yell at Yusuf and Nicolo, which is very far from the reaction they’d expected upon their return. 

When Andy and Quynh seem to be over their anger, Nicolo and Yusuf share a look. “We cannot die,” Yusuf shrugs. “Why would you mourn the two you know will always return?”

This time, Andy and Quynh share a look. Their stare lingers on one another, having a silent conversation, the kind that Nicolo and Yusuf has only just started to perfect. “Before you, there was another,” Andromache says, her voice gravely serious. 

“His name was Lykon,” Quynh explains. “He was an amazing warrior, and an even sharper mind. I think the two of of you would have liked him very much.”

“He fought with us for more than five hundred years, before, one day, his wounds did not heal,” Andromache continues, her head bowed in honor of her fallen companion. “Countless men and women have died in my arms, but his death is the one I will never shake.”

Nicolo doesn’t know what to say. He’s had over two hundred years to forget the fear of his wounds not mending themselves. He never considered that there might be a day where he would bleed, and the bleeding would not ever stop, until there was nothing more his body could give. He’s never even thought that, one day, his Yusuf would not rise again to fight at his side. He only stares at the women he loves most, shaken by the unshed tears in their eyes. 

Yusuf gets up to crouch at Andy’s side, reaching a hand up to her shoulder. “We will not be late again,” he promises. Andy catches his eyes, then gives him a firm nod of understanding. “I would promise that we will never leave your side again, but I know that, in just a few decades, you will be begging for us to stop pestering you so much.”

Andromache lets out a surprised laugh, punching Yusuf in the arm. “I wouldn’t ask that of you two,” she says, looking from Yusuf over to Nicolo. “You two deserve to enjoy alone time together without your old mothers hovering around.”

Yusuf chuckles and shakes his head. “You say this as though you did not also enjoy your alone time together,” he teases, trying to lighten the air around them. He turns his mischievous smirk to Quynh, who, despite being fearsome warrior with hundreds of thousands of battles under her belt, blushes. 

-

Many battles are won by the Old Guard, only for them to reflect and find that, perhaps, they had not been fighting for the right side. They feel undesired effects of battles wrongly won decades later, when the call to arms is forgotten, when everyone else who heard it is long dead. What was supposed to be conquests for good has resulted in new publications that condemn normal acts that have been natural since before Nicolo was born. 

It has been over two hundred years since Nicolo and Yusuf’s first time in Malta, and that was the last time they parted from Andy and Quynh. Andromache keeps a very strict regiment: they’re never anywhere longer than a few nights, they never form connections with the locals, and they always try to do the right thing. It isn’t that Andromache has gotten sloppy. There is no chance of that ever happening. Time has a way of blurring all lines, even that between good and evil. 

It is Andromache who suggests their short break. They need some time to recuperate after a particularly bloody war that left them all a little shaken. Yusuf was anxious to leave the west, feeling more and more eyes on him in this part of the world. They agree to meet in Turkey, at the old mines where they store old relics, in six month’s time. 

Six months pass like nothing, and by the time Nicolo and Yusuf reach the mine, two days early, they’re buzzing to see Quynh and Andy. Nicolo has missed them dearly, having not spent so long from them before. They’ve brought gifts for the women, finding red silk hat for Quynh and delicious treats Andromache. Yusuf and Nicolo spend two days imagining what Quynh and Andy have been up to. Yusuf says they’ve likely found some battle that needs settling, but Nicolo hopes that they’ve treated themselves to some romanticism of their own.

A week passes in the mine. Andromache and Quynh never show up. Fear sets into Nicolo’s body like it never has before. 

Yusuf steals two horses, and they ride faster than they ever have. It takes weeks of travel and asking the right questions before they stumble upon a little town who boasts of capturing an immortal witch. 

It’s quite easy for Nicolo to get answers from the local priest, with almost no effort put forth to convince the priest that Father Nicolas is an expert when it came to saving the souls of evil women and exterminating those those past saving. The priest is very forthcoming with Nicolo about details of the witch they hold captive. Nicolo hears how they have hung the witch, they stabbed her, they burned her, they starved her for weeks, and still, she lives. He learns that, had Father Nicolas and his traveling companion arrived just a week earlier, they could’ve been treated to their ridding of the other immortal witch they’d captured. 

Nicolo hides his wretched disgust well. He thinks of fifteen different ways to kill the man wearing the cross who sentenced Nicolo’s dearest friend to drown forever before smiling and asking to see the witch. The sooner he can start saving Andromache, the better.

The priest wants to join them, but Nicolo insists on doing his work alone. With a firm nod and a hand on the hilt of his scimitar, Yusuf stands guard outside the cell door as Nicolo enters. He hovers by the cell door, making sure the priest leaves, before turning to see his friend. 

Andromache is chained up by her arms to the wall, her hair filthy as it hangs around her face. She doesn’t look up at his entrance. She doesn’t know it’s him. He sucks in a surprised gasp at the sight. In the four hundred-odd years they have known each other, never before has Andromache the Scythian looked so broken, so weak.

“Oh, Andy,” he sighs, anguished at the sight. He drops to his knees before her. 

It’s only then that she looks up, at the sound of the pet name she’s earned. “Nico,” she chokes out, tugging against her chains to be closer to him. 

He reaches up and brushes her mangy hair from her face. The filth that layers her skin is streaked with her tears. “It’s okay, we’re here now,” he murmurs to her in Italian. “What happened?”

She lets out a broken sob, shaking her head. “They took Quynh,” she gasps. “They locked her in an iron coffin and they took her away, we have to save her!”

Nicolo clenches his jaw so tightly, his teeth creak. “They tossed her into the ocean,” he grits out. Terror takes over Andromache’s face. “We will save her, Andy. And we will kill those who sentenced her to this horrid fate. But first, we must free you.”

“I will kill that fucking priest myself,” she hisses through gritted teeth. 

He cradles her cheek in his palm. “I am starting to understand your hatred of religion,” he admits. He pulls a bladder of water from his side and lifts the mouthpiece to her lips. She drinks as carefully as she can, but the water splashes across her face with the awkward position. He wipes her face with the sleeve of his shirt, trying to find the woman he knows under the filth and blood. “I will find the keys to these chains and we will be back at nightfall to free you.”

There is an unfamiliar quiver if fear in Andy’s eyes when she realizes that he is leaving. All the same, she trusts him, and gives him a firm nod. 

He gives her a sympathetic smile. “I do not wish to leave you here,” he says. “But it would be preferable to making an escape while you have no hands.” Limbs grow back, but they take time, especially limbs with a million little bones and pieces. They simply don’t have the time to wait for, not one, but both of Andy’s hands to regrow.

“I don’t need hands to kill,” she bites, halfway between anguish and anger. 

A surprised chuckle bubbles out of Nicolo. “No, you do not,” he agrees. He cradles her head again, leaning forward and resting his forehead on hers, gently. He can’t imagine she’s had a gentle touch lately. “I will be back sooner than you’ll know I was gone.”

She nods again. “Give Joseph a kiss for me,” Andromache says. Nicolo smiles and nods to her before pulling away. He gives her one last look, and she holds his gaze, before he leaves her cell. 

Outside, Yusuf turns as the door creaks open. Nicolo scans their surroundings, seeing no eyes turned to them, before leaning into Yusuf’s side and planting a quick, gentle kiss to his cheek. 

“From Andy,” Nicolo explains. He tilts his head away, toward the inn they’d graciously been put up in as guests of the church. “Let’s go.” 

Yusuf needs exactly no more prompting, in sync with Nicolo, just a step behind him. They enter the inn and make it up to their quarters quickly, locking the door behind them. They speak in hushed Arabic, away from any ears that couldn’t understand them, anyway. Nicolo recalls every detail of the cell, of the conversation, of their Andy. They quickly hatch a plan, wincing only slightly as they decide to sacrifice their best bottle of honey wine for their cause. They’d been saving it for a special occasion, but this occasion is special enough.

Upon their arrival in the village, they were told that, should Father Nicolas and his companion need anything at all, all they need do is knock on the rectory door. And, with a gentle knock, Nicolo lets himself into the room, Yusuf just a step behind him. Yusuf shuts the door as Nicolo glides across the room toward the priest who has treated them so kindly, especially in comparison to how horrendously he’s treated Andromache. 

“Ah, Father Nicolas,” the priest greets, closing his book and smiling as he stands. “How was your visit with that wretched beast?” How can a man sound so cheerful as he insults Nicolo’s family? 

Nicolo clears his throat, gripping the back of the chair across from the priest. “Informative,” he divulges. “May I sit?” He needs to sit, before he jumps over the table that separates them and kills him. 

The priest waves his hand with a nearly-apologetic look. “Of course, please,” he invites, and Nicolo sits quickly. He looks up at Yusuf, who wordlessly passes him the bottle of sweet wine. 

“We have brought you a gift. For your kindness and your devotion to God.” Nicolo extends his arm, and the priest quickly takes the bottle to examine it. “It’s honey wine. Bottled nearly eighty years ago. We procured this from a collector of fine drinks, many years ago. I would be honored to share a glass with you, Father.”

“How could I deny such a request?” The priest agrees, jovially. He turns his stare to Yusuf. “There are goblets in the hutch, just there.” He gestures to the wall across the room, where a small cabinet keeps what little glassware he has. 

Nicolo grits his teeth. The disrespect continues. “He is not a servant,” he corrects, firm, but calm.

“Your body guard cannot fetch us two glasses?” The priest asks, unaware that Nicolo is very close to breaking the promise he made to Andromache of allowing her to be the one to kill him. 

“He is not my body guard,” Nicolo says, still just as calmly. “Should he choose to fetch glasses, he would fetch three and join us for a drink.”

Yusuf puts a steady hand on Nicolo’s shoulder. “I will not be drinking tonight,” he tells Nicolo in Arabic, and Nicolo can’t help but think that’s a wise decision. He turns towards the cabinet and stalks toward it, quickly grabbing two worn goblets. He sets the goblets down on the table, then extends his hand to the priest, offering to pour. 

After a moment of hesitation, the priest hands the honey wine over to the man who towers over him, a scimitar sheathed around his waist. Yusuf pours the honey wine, handing the first goblet to Nicolo, then handing the other, with twice as much wine, to their host. 

Nicolo lifts his glass in the air, and the priest does the same, before they both take a drink. Nicolo holds the rim of his goblet to his lips for longer than necessary, only taking a small sip, but silently encouraging the priest to drink more. The priest, as it turns out, doesn’t need much encouragement. The wine is as delicious as it is old and strong. When the priest pulls his half-empty goblet from his lips, he shudders. 

“That is excellent drink you carry with you,” the priest compliments. 

“I do not indulge often,” Nicolo admits, “but when there is cause for celebration, we must celebrate with some elevation, no?”

The priest’s brows raise expectantly. “And is there cause for celebration in regards to the abomination, Father?” He asks. 

Nicolo raises his glass in anticipation. “There just may be,” he nods, which is not as forthright as the priest might believe. 

A wide grin breaks out onto the priest’s face, lifting his goblet in return. “Your presence in our village is a blessing from God,” he toasts to Nicolo. He takes another long swig. 

Nicolo smirks into his goblet, then takes another lingering sip, until the priest has finished his goblet. Yusuf is right there, slowly pouring a little more into Nicolo’s glass, then reaching over to completely refill their host’s. 

“You say he is not your servant, and yet, he serves you devotedly,” the priest observes, the haze from the wine starting to seep in around the edges already. There was a reason they’d saved this honey wine for so long: it was potent, and masked by sweet sugars and fruits. Even a man of the priest’s size might waver after a single glass, and he was already lifting his second to his lips. 

Nicolo looks up to Yusuf, who doesn’t react to the priest’s words at all. Nicolo smiles slightly, then returns his eyes to the priest. “We serve each other,” he admits freely. “God has blessed us both beyond measure, and, through His grace and His will, our paths narrowed into one.” Yusuf looks at Nicolo and offers him a small, hidden smile, winking at him quickly. 

“Tell me what you saw when you prayed over the witch,” the priest prompts tapping the side of his goblet. 

Nicolo looks down into his glass and weighs his options. He considers the idea of demanding her freedom, that she is not cursed by Satan, but rather blessed by God. He thinks better of it, though; even if it worked, Andy might test Nicolo’s immortality for suggesting that she has been touched by God. “The chains you use for her, what are they made of?” He asks. 

“Iron,” the priest tells him. “Forged by a blacksmith a few towns away.” Nicolo nods, slowly, casting a glance at Yusuf, who shrugs. “What?” The priest questions, not liking their silent conversation. 

“I worry that these chains are not strong enough to hold her,” Nicolo explains, lying. 

“No?” The priest asks, the worry from Nicolo catching. 

Nicolo shrugs, as though he cannot be sure. He is sure, those chains could hold Andromache for many centuries. The priest doesn’t need to know that. “I have steel shackles,” he carries on lying. “We carry many supplies for odd cases such as these. These shackles were passed down to me many years ago, and are said to have been blessed by Archangel Michael.”

“And you would be willing to part with these blessed items?” The priests asks, baffled by that kind of generosity. He takes another glug of honey wine.

Nicolo bows his head slightly, trying his hardest to hide a grimace. “When the time comes, you will bestow them to someone who needs them more than you,” he says, easily. 

The priest gets a giddy look in his eyes at the idea of getting a new Holy toy to play with. “May-? May I see them?” He asks, almost childlike. He’s drunker than Nicolo expected him to be, but that works in his and Yusuf’s favor. 

Nicolo looks up at Yusuf and smiles softly at him. “See if you can find three horses for us,” he requests in Arabic, knowing that the priest will have no idea that Yusuf will not be getting the shackles that don’t actually exist. 

“I don’t want to leave you alone with him,” Yusuf grumbles, not even casting a glance over towards the drunken man across the table. 

“What could he do to me right now?” Nicolo tries his hardest not to smirk up at Yusuf, because the both of them know that he is too drunk to fight anyone, especially Nicolo. 

“I will meet you outside her cell,” Yusuf promises. “One hour.”

“Does your companion not speak German?” The priest grumbles, not liking being left out of the conversation. His words are starting to slur. 

Yusuf looks at him and, for the first time, allows a little bit of disdain to slip onto his face. “His companion speaks many languages,” he speaks for himself in perfect German, his accent even more crisp than Nicolo’s. He’s always been the best of their group when it comes to picking up languages. This fact clearly baffles the priest. Yusuf looks back to Nicolo, a soft look in his eyes. “I will do as you ask,” he promises Nicolo, not sparing a glance to the priest as he turns to leave. 

Nicolo watches as the door shuts behind Yusuf, then turns back to his host. “Are these your first witches?” He asks the priest, pulling his goblet back to his lips. The priest nods and does the same, gulping down more of the sweet wine, bottled before he was born. “I pray that they are your last. Consider yourself fortunate that the witch you captured is docile.”

“Docile?” The priest repeats. “She is violent with the spirit of Satan within her. She curses in many tongues. She is not docile.”

“In comparison to the other witches I have seen, she is,” Nicolo nods. It’s a bold-faced lie; Andromache is not docile, if anything, she is more wild and free than any other Nicolo has met. Still, he needs this madness to end somewhere, sometime. Not everyone can mend wounds like Andy, and any other women who might be accused by this man wouldn’t survive like Andy could. “If God has truly set you on the righteous path of hunting these agents of Satan, then I might suggest you greatly improve your resources. The witches you should truly fear, the ones that haunt my dreams, would see no match for their skills when they find themselves imprisoned in your-... facility, shall we say.”

“What do you mean, Father?” The priest asks, his words as slurred as his eyes are drooping. 

Nicolo leans in. “There will be many that you accuse, that fail tests, that are not witches,” he whispers, a brow raised. “But there will be some that pass your tests, and then slaughter your village’s livestock as a sacrifice to their False Gods. If you swing and miss, and the witches escape, they will be angry with the fury of Hell and seek revenge. They will blow the doors off of your walls. They will poison the water. They will devour children before they can be born, and turn the mothers into witches, too.” It’s getting too easy to scare people with witch stories. The priest’s glassy eyes well with fear. “If a fox enters the henhouse, a keeper must take out the threat before it destroys the flock, but only a foolish man seeks this kind of evil out.”

The priest nods in agreement, because he doesn’t want to inflict that kind of damage on his village with a hunt. He lifts his goblet to his lips, but misses, which draws a smirk from the corner of Nicolo’s mouth. “Have you had too much, Father?” He asks. “I’m sorry, they make wine much stronger in Thebes. Perhaps I should have warned you.” Instead, Nicolo had encouraged him, to purposefully get him this drunk. 

“No, I’m fine,” The priest clumsily waves him off. “We Germans can hold our drink unlike any other. In fact, I think I might enjoy another glass.”

“Are you sure?” Nicolo asks, not discouraging in the slightest as he’s already pouring more wine into the priest’s cup. 

“To the witches!” The priest says, lifting his glass quickly. The wine slips out of the glass with the movement, spilling over the priest’s fingers. “May they burn in Hell for eternity, and never return here!”

Nicolo forces a smile onto his face and drinks a sip from his own glass.

Not twenty minutes later, Nicolo is hoisting the priest into his bed, heavy from overindulging far too quickly. Now that the priest snores loudly enough to wake the dead, flat on his back, he finds a ring of keys and takes them with him as he leaves the priest’s quarters. Nicolo is quick to make his way back into the cell, the guard standing by the door letting him in with a reverent bow of his head. 

Andromache’s head snaps up at the sound of someone entering, and sags in relief at the sight of Nicolo. He tries three keys on the lock around her wrist before the fourth fits. As soon as her arm is free, it snaps back into the correct position with a loud crack. When the second arm is freed and makes the same cracking sound as she heals, Andy lets out a soft groan. She launches herself into Nicolo’s waiting arms, and he hugs her tightly to him, not at all caring about how filthy she is, or how bad she smells. All he can think is how happy he is to have her back in his arms, and how sad Quynh’s absence feels.

Nicolo pulls back to smile at her. She doesn’t return it, but he doesn’t blame her for that; she’s been through a lot. “Would you like to get cleaned up before or after you kill your captor and set fire to his church?” He asks her, genuinely curious as to her preference. 

Her eyes harden. “After.”

-

Andy doesn’t smile for fifty years. When she does, it’s at a terrible pun Yusuf makes in Greek, despite their being in Scotland, because the pun doesn’t work in Gaelic. 

-

Over the years, Yusuf brings home quite a few strays. More accurately, the strays usually follow him home after being fed and enthusiastically pet. Yusuf is a tender-hearted man who has never been able to look at creatures in need and turn a blind eye. It’s one of the many, many reasons Nicolo loves him so. Sometimes, Yusuf comes home with a sheepish smile and a mewling kitten under his arms, or a wriggling puppy at his feet. There have been snakes, and monkeys, and rabbits, and more, all of different sizes and temperaments, but the same adoration of Yusuf. And Nicolo is too tender-hearted, too, and could never tell Yusuf ‘no’. Andy seems to like animals more than she likes most people, so she’s alway on-board when it comes to taking in a tiny, or sometimes large, mouth to feed. 

Once, very early on, before Yusuf and Nicolo has even so much as kissed, there was Samira, the spunky little gray cat they thought was a kitten, but never got any bigger. Yusuf would let her sit on his shoulders. She once clawed the eyes out of an intruder. When she passed, eight years after they took her in, Yusuf cried. They had another cat, a century and a half later, who was a fat, lazy thing that liked to cry for food. Yusuf danced with him in his arms, planting kisses to the furry face that was desperate to escape Yusuf’s loving clutches.

There was a time in Norway that Yusuf brought home an adorable little pup that grew, in only a year, until the tips of his pointed ears were at Yusuf’s waist. They called the pup Magnus, and he was a loving and ferocious guard dog who often accompanied them on the battlefield. He protected the Old Guard until his fur was gray with age and he could no longer travel with them. Yusuf, Nicolo and Andromache waited for Magnus’ passing before moving on. 

A baby squirrel climbed up Yusuf’s leg as an enormous storm rolled in, and Yusuf brought it inside. The storm ravaged for two days. The squirrel died on the third day, only just after they’d settled on a name for it. They buried in the ground outside of the abandoned church they’d camped out in, still thick and muddy after the storm.

On one memorable occasion, five crows started to follow the Guard around after Yusuf had gifted them each a gold coin. The crows stayed with them for two years before flying off, leaving them with shiny treasures. Yusuf’s crow call got very good, with the group learning to flock when they heard him. Andy liked to tease Yusuf about joining a murder. 

The stray that they loved most was Elombe. They find him in Ndongo. In this part of the world, people look much closer to Yusuf than they do Nicolo and Andromache, with dark eyes and hair that curls, but much darker skin. The Guard sticks out like sore thumbs, but the people are very friendly towards them. They are not the only sore thumbs. Through trends seen for many years, the Guard knows, when they see Europeans on the African continent, nothing good can come. 

They were Spanish sailors, with an enormous ship and all sorts of new things to play with. Nicolo traded them tobacco for their looking glass, which he now uses to see from across the way as the sailors usher a line of people onto the ship in the dead of night. The people are chained together in their lines, and that seems to be the only thing they have in common. They’re of all ages and sizes, both men and women, even children. He relays what he sees to Yusuf, crouched at his side, and Andy, standing behind him, arms crossed over her chest. 

“Slavers,” Yusuf explains, voice graveled with disgust. The Guard have been alive long enough to know that the Spaniards are under the impression that they’re better than these people, and long enough to know that the notion is foolish. 

“The Spaniards first,” Andromache commands. “Free the people. Break the chains. Get them to safety.”

“Torch the ship?” Yusuf suggests. 

“Send a message that no ship with this cargo can leave this port,” Nicolo agrees, stashing away his looking glass. 

They’ve been through this song and dance routine enough times to know the choreography in their sleep. The Spanish don’t expect anyone to stop them, especially not three who creep like Death itself. While surprise gives the Guard the upper hand, the Spaniards are well prepared, in their own regard. 

After killing eight slavers, Nicolo gets gutted with a short knife, the kind kept to cut ropes. When he wakes again, Yusuf is there, cradling his cheek. He sees the sailor that killed him lying dead nearby. Andy, on the other side of the deck, drops the last body. 

“Nicky?” She calls, having seen him fall, turning to see where Yusuf is crouched over him. 

“I’m here,” he grunts, reaching up to grasp Yusuf’s wrist in a silent ‘thank you’. Yusuf bends down, like he used to during his prayers, to press his forehead to Nicolo’s. “Let’s go.”

Yusuf pulls him to his feet, and they go straight for the hatch that takes them down to the cargo hull. It’s hard to see in the darkness, but the more Nicolo’s eyes adjust down below, the more breathless he becomes. There must have been five hundred people, all chained together in the dark, awaiting an undeserved punishment. 

“Good God,” Nicolo gasps, and Yusuf puts a firm, steady hand on his shoulder. He hears Andy’s shoes hit the wooden ground behind him. There’s a pause as she takes in the sight. 

“Joseph, take the men,” Andy directs in Italian, which always ends up being their go-to code language. “Nicky, free the children. I’ll save the women.”

“Why does Nicky get the children?” Yusuf asks, not actually complaining about his position. 

“Because, my light, you have murder in your eyes,” Nicolo explains, “and that is a sentiment men appreciate more than children.” He gives Yusuf a small smile before finding dashing through the rows of scared, desperate people to find the youngest captors, huddled together near the back. 

The youngest is a baby, no older than three. The sight of that little face in the darkness pains Nicolo so deeply, he’ll never forget it. The shackles around his tiny wrists shackles slip right off, no need to break his chains. As soon as his little hands are free, he grips at Nicolo’s robes, unwilling to part from his savior. Nicolo doesn’t mind his little passenger as he makes quick work of all the chains. After the witch hunts, the Guard has gotten very good at breaking chains of all kinds. As they’re unshackled, the children find their families, reuniting with overwhelmed, emotional tears. 

Nicolo finishes his task first, and ushers the freed people off the ship and away from this nightmare. All the while, the toddler clings to his side. Nicolo hoists him up to hold him, to show him to everyone who leaves the ship. Most don’t know him. The few that do say his mother was taken by one of the sailors, and wasn’t seen again. The boy falls asleep with his face buried into Nicolo’s neck. 

After the last passengers are running away from the port, and away from a life of horrors, Andy and Yusuf come back up above deck, each with a lantern in their hands. 

“One left?” Andy asks, pointing at the little boy in Nicolo’s arms.

“They say he has no one,” Nicolo explains. “His mother is gone.”

Yusuf gives a small smile as he fits himself into the slot beside Nicolo. “It seems you are the one to collect the stray this time,” he comments, looking over the little boy. At being called out, Nicolo blushes, but smiles, not looking away from Yusuf, who reaches out and puts a gentle hand on the little boy’s back. The boy stirs slowly. 

Andy gestures off the ship, and Nicolo can’t help but think she’s brilliant. Nicolo walks down the ramp to the dock first, holding the boy tightly. As he makes his exit, he hears two soft wooshes, glass shattering, and the sound of wood being engulfed by flame. As he walks through the port, and to their temporary home, he hears Yusuf and Andy’s familiar footsteps behind him, echoing against the buildings passed. 

“Where are we going?” The boy asks him, quiet and exhausted as he mutters into Nicolo’s long hair. 

“Somewhere safe, little one,” he promises.

“I miss my mama,” he whimpers, and Nicolo holds him tighter. One hand reaches up to cup the boy’s head, delicately. His heart aches. No child deserves to have their mother taken from them, especially at this young age.

“What is your name, sweet boy?” He whispers, still trying to give the illusion of silence as he and his fellow Guard walk through the port city quickly. 

The boy sniffles. “Elombe,” he says, gripping Nicolo as tightly as he can. 

“My name is Nicky,” he tells Elombe. “Behind me is my love, Joseph, and our sister in arms, Andy. We will protect you, no matter what comes.”

Elombe nods against Nicolo’s shoulder, looking over to see Yusuf and Andromache. Nicolo prays they’re not covered in too much blood. He feels how close Yusuf is; he can easily imagine Yusuf giving a toothy smile and a wave, the way he gives all children when he catches them staring at him. 

“It’s not safe for him with us,” Andy grunts in Italian, not looking at the boy as she makes her way to the front of their little line.

“And it would be safer for him without us?” Yusuf responds in their secret language. 

“Drop him at an orphanage,” Andy says. 

“I do not think he will let go of me for long enough to do so,” Nicolo squeaks, knowing that his preferred option for how they deal with this new member of their team is not Andy’s preferred option. 

Andy lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You two are soft-hearted, old fools,” she accuses them, which makes Nicolo and Yusuf smile at each other.

“You will not regret this, boss,” Yusuf grins. 

“I already regret this,” Andy grumbles. 

-

No time passes at all before Elombe calls Nicolo ‘Papa’. The first time he says it, everyone can tell, Elombe hadn’t meant to say it. Embarrassment colors his little face, but Nicolo sweeps him up into his arms and kisses his cheek. After that, Elombe knows he is Nicolo and Yusuf’s son, and calls Yusuf ‘Baba’. 

It makes Nicolo’s heart melt every time. 

They take him far from Ndongo, far from any place he might be seen as a potential payday. They give him expensive toys and fine clothes, so no wandering eye is mistaken about how much they care about him. Even Andy adores the boy, gladly spending gentle time with him in ways Yusuf and Nicolo have never seen before. Well, gentle is used here in a comparative sense; nothing Andromache does is gentle anymore.

Elombe is a brilliant boy. He picks up a certain, unsurprising collection of skills in the presence of his family. By the time he’s ten, he speaks four languages fluently, and enough pieces of others to pick up on conversations. He delights in their travels, and perks up when his family returns after missions. He reads and writes beautifully. He has a gift for music. When he decides he’s old enough, which might be too young, he begins to learn to fight, and is shockingly graceful on his feet. He is everything that makes his fathers’ hearts bloom with pride and love. 

And Elombe loves his fathers, too. He sticks to their side, absorbing everything they say like a little sponge. He adores them so completely, and Nicolo does everything he can to be worthy of it. 

Early on in his adolescence, Elombe practices fighting with his Papa, with his Baba’s scimitar against Papa’s sword. Nicolo goes easy on his son, perhaps too easy, for how good the boy had gotten under their careful tutorage. Nicolo gets stuck in the side with Yusuf’s scimitar, but Elombe is the one to shout in surprise. 

Nicolo wavers, then starts to fall, but Elombe drops to his knees to catch his Papa before he can hit the dirt. “No, no, no, Papa,” Elombe begs, patting the side of Nicolo’s face to try and keep him away. “Baba!” He’s crying, and it breaks Nicolo’s heart. “Papa, please! Stay with me!”

Nicolo lifts a hand, weakly smiling as his fingers brush Elombe’s cheek. “Never fear for me,” he whispers, and dies in his son’s arms as he hears his Yusuf’s frantic footsteps scurry towards them, sliding across the dirt to be close to his family.

“Baba, I-,” Elombe stammers, broken from his Papa in his arms, lifeless. Never before has he seen his family die. “We were just practicing! I didn’t mean to hurt him!”

Yusuf grabs Elombe and holds him tightly. “Oh, Elo. No, it’s okay. Come here. It’s alright,” he promises. “He will not leave you. He will always come back to us.” Andy says they cannot predict when their time will come, but Yusuf knows this is not Nicolo’s time. Elombe sobs in his Baba’s arms, guilt and sadness overwhelming him. Yusuf shushes him gently, rocking his boy. He does not sob for long. 

Nicolo takes in a sharp breath, his eyes sparking back to life. 

Elombe jumps in surprise, gawking down at Nicolo. “Papa?” He gasps. “I-? I thought-?”

“You are a wonderful warrior, my son,” Nicolo croaks, smiling as he starts to sit up. Yusuf’s hands are there, helping him up. “But I have been on this end of your Baba’s scimitar many times, and it has yet to be my final end.”

“How?” Elombe stammers, his eyes ripping back and forth between his fathers. 

Nicolo and Yusuf share a look, a quick, silent conversation, then turn to look at Elombe. “There are many of God’s blessings we do not understand,” Nicolo tells their son. “Your Baba, and your Aunt Andy, and I, we do not die. We are living, like you, but we have not aged, and our wounds always heal. We have fought in many wars, and been the last standing on the battlegrounds many times.”

Elombe stares off into the distance, digesting this morsel of information. “You’ll never die?” He squeaks, turning his eyes back to his Papa. 

“One day, Papa and I will face our end together, but it will not be for a very, very long time,” Yusuf promises, an affectionate hand brushing over Elombe’s curls. “We will never leave your side, my son.”

Elombe’s face tightens with enlightened confusion. “Is this why a priest and a poet are so good at fighting?” He asks, having never understood how their skills were so perfected. 

Yusuf laughs, pulling Elombe in for a hug, and Nicolo smiles at the sight. “You are the most brilliant boy to have ever lived, my Elo,” he compliments, kissing the top of Elombe’s head affectionately. “No scholar or philosopher holds a candle to your mind.” Elombe rolls his eyes.

-

Elombe never asks for their gift. He knows it is not for him, and he knows that they cannot bestow it. He knows he is not as strong as them, and seeing hundreds of lifetimes of war is not something he could grow accustomed to. So, he lives a normal life, or, as normal as life can be when one’s family is immortal warriors. He trains, and he studies, and he thinks a great deal. He adopts many pets. He reads many books and travels to many places. He marries a beautiful woman, Daraja, and his Papa and Baba cry during the ceremony. Daraja gives Elombe a son and two daughters. Papa and Baba never want to put the babies down. Elombe teaches his children everything he as ever learned in his life, with the kindness and strength his fathers gave him. 

When he dies, he dies an old man, with his fathers and wife at his side, Aunt Andy watching from the corner of the room, and four grandchildren playing in the other room. His last breath is a slow one, and he exhales with a smile on his face and a memory fading in his dark eyes. 

Daraja doesn’t see her husband’s parents cry. They linger for a week or two, taking care of things for her, things her own children should do. She feels blessed to have been touched by their love. A part of her knows that, when they leave, she will never see them again. She watches Nicky and Joe play with her grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, in the same way they once played with her husband. In their young, joyful eyes, Nicolo sees Elombe, and the infinite love that grows with every day. In his own way, Elombe lives forever, too. 

Joe keeps a small book of sketches filled entirely with Elombe and their memories together. Sometimes, after bad missions that take root in his mind, Nicolo asks if he can see it, to remember what their boy once was. His fingers trace reverently over the lines that make up his image. 

When they leave, Nicky and Joe leave their family many gifts of old, things that are worth unfathomable amounts. Their endless sentimentality has an unexpected side-effect: comfort and wealth. With Andy, they fight many more battles. When they return to their late son’s homestead, their great-grandson is an old man, who remembers Papa and Baba fondly, and is breathless at the sight of them. 

Nicolo and Yusuf are great-great-great grandfathers now, with another great to be tacked on in a few months time. This leaves them breathless, too. Time passes so much faster when there are people keeping track just by existing. They leave gifts again, twice as many this time, to make sure that their family is always well cared for. 

Their great-great grandson seems to have followed in their footsteps, rising to general of an army, fighting back against those who come to their lands and try to steal their people. Nicolo and Yusuf think this cause is very noble, and couldn’t be more proud. His son is in the English colonies, in the New World, fighting for America’s freedom. That sounds like a worthy enough cause to them. 

Nicolo had once thought the three of them too old to go to the New World, but the New World was getting old, too. There were battles to be won, across the ocean, and a family expanding there, too. Why not make the trek across the ocean? 

The journey is long, worsened by an illness that sweeps through the crew, forcing the Old Guard to pick up slack, but made better by a game, where they name their battles in order, which always ends with recalling fond memories made between battles. They make it just in time, because on their tails are thousands of British troops, ready to overtake New York. 

After killing more than their fair share of redcoats, Andy, Nicky and Joe are brought to the General. They should have brushed up on their English before arriving in the New World, but, fortunately, the General’s right hand speaks French. Joe learns English quickly, and is able to teach it to Nicky and Andy easily. Eventually, after too many impossible battles won, the General has to know, how do they do it? He is a good man, who cares very much for the people of his new country, so they entrust him with their secret. He swears to never tell a soul, and he thanks them very much for their service. 

But the men talk. They have a lot of eyes on them. How odd, the three that arrived just two days before British forces, -one of them a woman, at that,- killing enemies more effectively than anyone else they’d ever seen, and they were sure they’d fought with the best. The Guard keep to themselves, but show kindness to those they fight alongside. Many have seen them fall, the way so many do, only for them to get back up a moment later and continue the fight. Whispers wander through the air of the Union camps. Between the way they catch bullets, and how tenderly the two men stare into each other’s eyes, the Old Guard become a favorite subject around many a campfire and table. 

One night, after a victory, four soldiers return to camp from a local tavern, drunk on success and lots of ale. They stank before they left, and now, as they pass by the small fire they’re reminiscing in Italian around, they’re unbearable. Somehow, they become more so, when they swing back around to look at the Guard, one in the middle pointing a wavering finger at the three immortals. 

“How is it, exactly,” the soldier who points slurs, “that three unknown, slaughterous foreigners can wander into our country, fight our battles, win the favor of our General, without getting even a scratch on them? Huh?”

“That sounds very well-articulated for a man of your current stature,” Nicky comments, lightly, his English still very accented. He speaks slowly, for the benefit of his conversation partner. “Have you been thinking about this very long?”

“Do you want to know what I think?” The soldier continues, taking a staggering step forward. 

“Please,” Joe smirks, extending an inviting hand. 

“I think you lot are spies,” the drunken man continues, two of his friends jeering him on. “I think you work for the British, getting secrets and sending them back to ol’ George.”

“Spies for the British, defeating British troops at every turn?” Andy asks, for clarification. 

“There may be some fault to your logic, my friend,” Nicky smiles. “I do not fault you for your doubts. I have seen many impossible things happen. It took me a very long time to accept these things. I do not blame you for not understanding yet. You are still very young.”

The soldier scoffs, casting a glance to his companions. “You’re no more than a bare few years older than me,” the soldier complains.

Nicolo looks at Yusuf and Andromache, and they share a private chuckle over their fire. “Appearances can be very deceiving,” Nicky says, smiling over to the soldiers. 

“Would you like to know how we do what we do?” Andy asks, her voice low and dark, likely to purposefully scare them. “Are you sure you want to know the secret?”

One of the other soldiers, the one who has been trying to get them to leave since they stopped, on the farthest edge of their little congregation, decides its time to take control of the situation. “We know you’re not spies,” he says, stepping in front of his friend. “But, you must know, there are whispers. Lots of stories.”

“You have no idea,” Joe grins, shaking his head, looking to Nicky, who can’t imagine what stories float through Joe’s mind. Either way, Nicky holds his gaze with a small smirk of his own.

“Why do you look at him like this, so openly?” The drunken leader butts in, finger pointing between Joe and Nicky. Joe raises an eyebrow at the man. “If you two are lovers, in the way everyone likes to whisper about, you ought to do a better job hiding it.”

“Who says I am hiding?” Joe demands, all amusement gone from his face. “I am here, in the open, with the love of my life. I am not hiding, and I will never hide, especially not from children like you. I have seen thousands more battles than your little mind could fathom, and his light is the only thing that keeps me from the darkness of endless kills. Your war for freedom is not the first I’ve fought, and it will not be the last. When you are dead, either on these grounds, or in fifty years, he will be fighting at my side. When all I have seen plagues my dreams and threatens to drown me in my sleep, it his his voice that soothes me. He is not my lover. He is not my husband, not my soulmate. He’s so much more than mere words could encapsulate.”

When Yusuf looks to Nicolo, a fiery passion in his eyes, Nicolo’s heart skips in his chest. He smiles at Yusuf, just barely, just enough for Yusuf to see in the glow of their campfire. Andy kicks Joe’s boot. Joe turns his head as the four drunken soldiers leave, deciding not to get into a fight with the three best soldiers they’ve ever seen when they can barely stand. 

-

The dreams begin again. Another warrior has fallen, only to rise again. Andy recognizes the soldier’s uniform as a French one, so they seek passage back to Europe to find him. Joe draws his face in a blank journal until all three have memorized his features. The journey is long, made longer by pirates and storms. By the time they port in France, they know that the new one has returned to his home, his family. Andy thinks him a fool. 

The Book is a fool, and a tortured one at that. Nicky understands watching the pain of a son die from something he cannot save him from. The difference is, Nicky had hundreds of years to prepare for the inevitable. Booker is still wrapped up in the notion that children should die after their parents. He is a hell of a fighter, though, with all sorts of modern warfare techniques to share with the Guard. When he’s mostly sober, because he’s never been entirely sober since Nicky’s met him, he’s a good man, who likes to laugh just as much as he likes to fight. When he’s drunk, he’s still a good man, but a very sad one. 

At first, Nicky thinks Booker sneers at he and Joe because they’re both men, and most Christians these days take issue with that sort of thing. He realizes, though, quite quickly, that Booker isn’t disgusted or appalled, but resentful. He resents that Joe and Nicky are a pair, while he is doomed to walk alone in this unending life. For Booker’s sake, they try to keep their flirting and romanticism to a minimum. 

Centuries worth of habits are hard to break. They cannot stop the way Joe curls around Nicky when they sleep, an arm slung around Nicky’s middle as they face the door. They can’t help the way a memory sweeps through them. When they die on the battlefield, they have no option but to wait for one another. Booker understands. He resents, but he does it silently, and never blames them for having what he cannot have.

When they sit together, they put Book between them, to include him. Just because Booker lost one family does not mean that he doesn’t have a family anymore. Booker seems to appreciate this. Finally, Joe has someone who enjoys sports as much as he does; in their free time, he and Booker like to box, or fence, or kick a football around. Nicky loves to watch them. Booker and Nicky come up with a game, where they see if Andy can guess where a sweet treat has been made with five details or less. If she can’t, whoever got her the treat wins. They bet all sorts of things, usually money, sometimes favors or books. Andy is the only one who is good at this game. Joe never plays, but watches with a wide, amused grin, every time. 

Nicky feels sorry for Booker’s sadness, for the loneliness Booker carries around. He feels sorry that he hadn’t noticed it in Andy, after Quynh. His family is important. Joe and he come to a mutual agreement, that they will not rub their companions’ noses in it. 

-

The world moves faster than ever. They are firmly in the age of information. Any question they’ve ever asked, they can ask these wonderful, smart rectangles they keep in their pockets and get answers. Many, many petty, centuries-old tiffs are rehashed with the invention of Google. The technology advances quickly, but the Guard can keep up with every new modernization. 

Weapons are more deadly than ever. Nicky gets very good with sniper rifles, often striking two birds with one stone. He’s had to learn to sharpen his own sword, as the art of the blade has fallen out of fashion, but he doesn’t mind so much. There are things at their fingertips which was once unimaginable. Cameras and explosives and automatic weapons thrust war into faster timetables. 

It becomes nearly impossible for the Old Guard to have any effect on the world. When they hear about an attack, even with quick access to airplanes and helicopters, it’s often too late for their talents, or their talents wouldn’t be helpful at all. How could they be effective against a drone strike, or a suicide bomber, or a falling aircraft?

For the first time, Andy feels helpless. She feels as though she has no worth left. The help she lends to the world isn’t nearly enough to outweigh all the bad she can’t stop. She needs a break. Nicky isn’t sure she’s ever willingly taken a break, if Andy has ever been the one to suggest a break. They haven’t had a day off since before Booker joined the Guard. So, they take break. They agree to meet in Marrakech in a year. It’s the longest they’ve been away from Andy since Germany, since Quynh. 

Nicky is antsy the entire time. He misses her. He worries for her. Booker has ways of checking in, making sure she’s okay as she travels, which eases Nicky some. At first, he and Joe stick with Booker, not wanting him to be lonely, but their time off reminds Joe of the early decades of their romance, which is far too lovey-dovey for Book. They stay nearby, but give each other space. 

Joe and Nicky arrive in Marrakech two days early, a habit from centuries ago. Days usually never feel like much at all, but the two they spend alone at the hotel, waiting for Booker and Andy, feel like an eternity. 

When Nicky opens the hotel room door to see Andy, just a step behind Booker, he starts to feel like everything is okay again. He smiles at her, and she steps into his waiting arms, cupping the back of his head affectionately. As Joe lifts Andy off the ground, and she laughs as she hoisted into the air, Nicky watches with a fond smile before hugging Booker. It’s only been a few weeks since Nicky saw Booker, but it still feels good to hug his little brother. 

Nicky gives her baklava and puts money down on the table for Booker, just like old times. Joe laughs as Nicky looses money in three details. It feels good, like they’re back. 

Until the mission, that is. 

-

  
Decades later, after they’ve said a tearful goodbye to Andy, as the end of the hundred year time-out draws nearer and nearer, when she’s trying to find a lint roller to get all this damn cat hair off, Nile finds a worn, old notebook. The aged pages contain the same boy’s face, over and over, slowly growing. She flips through the pages, watching as the boy grows. There are no dates on the pages, but the paper is a little frayed, despite lots of tender care. 

It feels too intimate, like something she shouldn’t know about without their permission. Part of her wants to shove the book away and pretend she never saw it, but another part knows that Joe and Nicky will always be open and honest with her. 

She brings the book to Nicky, setting it down in front of him as he sips a cup of coffee. He doesn’t need to open the book to know who’s inside it. Instead, he smiles at the worn old cover fondly. 

“His name was Elombe,” Nicky explains without Nile having to ask, without the sketches even needing to be seen. She sits across from him at the table, her fingers locked together with keen interest. “He was our son.”

Nile’s brows raise in surprise. “I didn’t know you had a son,” she murmurs. 

Nicky smiles a little wider, a million memories passing over his mind. “It was a very long time ago,” he says. “After Quynh. Before Booker. We saved his life when he was a very young boy, and he was ours from then.”

Nile smiles a little. She looks down at the book in front of Nicky, and Nicky slides it across the table so she can see him more closely. She flips through the book, through Elombe’s childhood. “What was he like?” She asks without looking up from the drawings.

Nicky’s smile only grows as he remembers. “He was brilliant,” he says. “He loved to read and to learn. He theorized, well over a hundred years before the birth of John Dalton, that all life on this planet was made of the same energy structure at its base form. He was almost right.” He leans a little closer and looks down to the pages, to his son’s face. The memory of Elombe hasn’t faded, he still looks this way in Nicky’s head. “He was an accomplished and graceful fighter. Once, when he was, perhaps, fourteen, he stabbed me with Joe’s scimitar and was sure he’d killed me.” He chuckles fondly at the memory. “When he died, my heart broke in a way that will never be repaired, even though I knew that this would happen before I ever even saw him.”

Nile flips through the pages, and she arrives to when he could start being called a man. She can see very clearly how much Joe and Nicky loved their son, based solely on how reverently and clear Joe has drawn him, enough times to fill an entire book of only Elombe’s face. To Nile, it feels like history’s most extra baby book, which she also finds very sweet. “What happened to him?” Nile asks, softly. She doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries.

Nicky has no cares for boundaries, not with Nile. Should she ask a question about something Nicky remembers, she will always get an answer. “His age caught up to him,” Nicky says, leaning over the table and flipping to the last page of the Elombe book. On the page are the hands of an old man, the face of a beautiful, old woman with sadness in her eyes, and new, young faces. “He laid in his bed, much older than most get, even now. He was gray and wrinkled, and had seen far more than Joe or I ever wanted him to see. But, even then, he was our boy. He had three children, and they had children. His line continues to this day.” He turns to the doorway, to where Nile hadn’t noticed Joe standing. “How many ‘greats’ do we have added to our title?”

Joe scratches the belly of the cat he holds like an infant in one arm. “Ten,” he says. “Not even my memories of meeting Nicolo make me feel as old as being a great-great-great-great grandfather.”

Nicky nods in agreement, smiling faintly at Joe. Nile looks back and forth at them in surprise. Clearly, she hadn’t expected for them to have living descendants. “We have great-grandchildren in both the United States and Nigeria,” Nicky explains. He pauses to look at Joe. “Do you have the names nearby?”

“Oh, c’mon, what do you take me for?” Joe teases, and leaves the room for a moment. He comes back with another worn journal, and without the cat. He hands the old, leather book over to Nile with a small smile, just as happy to share their history with Nile as Nicky is. “I try and keep the names and birth dates of everyone,” he says as he sits beside Nicky at the table. “Nicky thinks I’m being overly sentimental, but I think it’s the very least I can do for the children of Elombe.”

“We see him in each of them, in some small way or another,” Nicky says, because as overly sentimental as Joe may be, Nicky is just as much so. “Even still to this day, his eyes and his kindness live on.”

“You’ve met them all?” She asks, opening the book and scanning the long list of thousands of names, dating back hundreds of years. 

“In no way that is significant to them,” Nicky explains, then chuckles to himself. “Though I believe the family still tells the story of being descended from immortal warriors.”

Nile flips to the last pages filled, near the middle of the book, to the newest names added. She laughs in surprise at one of the newer names.

“What?” Joe asks, leaning towards her, looking down at the page.

“Kaia Genoa Mullins,” Nile reads, “May 1994, Chicago, Illinois, United States.”

“You have met Kaia?” Nicky asks, brightening at the mention of her. 

“I went to school with her forever,” Nile says, remembering all those years ago. Nicky and Joe share a look. “God, she was, like, the most popular girl in the whole school. Perfect grades, perfect hair, perfect life. But, like, she was popular because she was actually friends with everybody. I remember she went out of her way to be my friend after my dad died.” Nile smiles down at her name, and Nicky and Joe smile at each other. 

“Four hundred years later, even you got to feel Elombe’s kindness,” Nicky says, warmly. 

Joe chuckles, thinking of times before their Elo. “Be grateful you did not meet Andy before Elombe’s saving,” he says, jokingly, pointing at Nile. 

This concept settles into Nile’s mind, realizing slowly that they had a child, a family, and that included Andy. “Andromache the Scythian helped you two raise Prom Queen Kaia Mullins’ ancestor?” She repeats plainly, making sure she understands this completely. 

Nicky smiles widely at her phrasing. “She and Elo were very close,” he recalls. “I think, after loosing Quynh, Andy needed to be reminded that others will always love her. I think, meeting his great-great grandchildren showed her something only you could fully explain: what we do is much bigger than us.”

Nile sighs as she shuts the book, sliding them both back across the table to Joe. “I can’t imagine having a kid with a life like ours,” she shakes her head. She couldn’t really imagine kids before she joined the Old Guard, and now it feels almost impossible. 

Joe chuckles fondly. “We made it work,” he admits. “And he made it very easy. Truthfully, we couldn’t imagine life with a child, either, but he had no one else. We had no choice.”

Nicky opens the journal Nile found to the first page, to the little tot, still hesitant with his smiles, hidden against Nicky’s neck. “This is the boy we met,” Nicky explains. “Barely a child at all, and left alone in that world. We helped him from the hull of a Spanish ship. Had he not been our son, it is very likely he could’ve ended up in another.”

Nile is silent for a few moments, trying to fully understand their Elombe. She saw the year he was born in the date book, she knows what the Spanish ships meant for boys who looked like Elombe. She remembers how her own ancestors came to America, hundreds of years ago. “You saved him,” she says. 

“We tried to save many,” Nicky says. “As many as we could. Elombe saved us just as much.”

“He still saves us,” Joe agrees, slowly nodding his head. “Kaia has a son. He’s in his forties, expecting a child of his own.”

“His forties?!” Nile repeats. “Fuck, I’m getting old.”

“Imagine how we feel,” Joe chuckles, the cat jumping up into his lap to demand attention. She rubs her face into Joe’s beard, marking him as hers. He kisses her fur softly, scratching her neck affectionately. 

Nile shakes her head and smile. “Nah, I know your secret, you take in every stray that follows you home,” she calls him out, leaning back and folding her arms over her chest. 

“That is not a secret,” Nicky tells her, smirking at the cat. 

“The secret, Nile,” Joe says, stroking the cat lovingly as she settles on his lap, “is that I think of every stray we take in as God, telling me that I am on on the blessed path He set us on, and that’s why I take them in.”

Nile gets that same, surprised look on her face, whenever Joe and Nicky talk about God. She forgets, sometimes, that Nicky and Joe have lived many lives, and changed a little bit every single day they’ve lived. It’s been close to a thousand years since Yusuf and Nicolo have stopped, five times a day, to thank their shared God for His bessings. Nicky wouldn’t call himself a Christian anymore, and Joe wouldn’t call himself Muslim, but their devotion to God hasn’t lessened with time. Their practice has changed but not their faith. Nicky doesn’t wear a cross and Joe doesn’t use a prayer rug, but that doesn’t mean they don’t thank God every day. 

“Including me?” Nile asks, almost small, like she might be afraid of her answer. 

Under the table, Joe kicks her foot. “Especially you,” he promises. 


End file.
